


Love and Loss

by bip_1060



Category: X-Men (Movies), X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Character Study, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-01
Updated: 2011-08-01
Packaged: 2017-10-22 02:35:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/232789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bip_1060/pseuds/bip_1060
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charles thinks on letting Erik go, and how some things never change.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love and Loss

Charles Xavier loves Erik Lehnsherr. This is a fact of his life. He loves him with all that he is. Erik doesn’t know this. Charles never told him. Never told anyone; not even Raven. He couldn’t tell them. Not because Erik loved his sister. He’d peeked into Erik’s mind enough to know that wasn’t true. Not because his sister had a crush on Erik, though he knew that was true, without having to peek. No, he didn’t tell him because he knew, beyond any doubt in the world he knew that Erik would never stay. Not for him.

Erik was what Schmidt wanted him to be. A killer. A weapon used to protect mutants and destroy humanity. But Charles knew Erik could be more than that. He’d lead a mutant revolution, or at least he’d try. Erik could inspire greatness in anyone. He had the ability to make people feel like they were the most special people in the world. The greatest individual who ever lived, though most of them paled in comparison to Erik himself. Charles made people feel like part of a special family. Erik made people feel like special individuals.

Charles, the geneticist, the expert in evolution knew something else though. He knew that, in the end, mutants would be just as insignificant as the humans who came before them, and the Cro-Magnons before them. Eventually, long after he and Erik and Raven and all the rest were dead, they would be replaced as well. And they’d hold on just like the humans were now. The humans were afraid of change, afraid of people they didn’t know could possible to exist. He made a mistake on the beach. He shouldn’t have excused their behavior as just following orders. He knew that was only part of it. The rest was fear. Lots of fear. Fear he could feel all the way on the beach, so far from the ships. But Erik wasn’t able to feel that. Or to feel Shaw die. Or to feel how empty Charles was without Erik in his mind. The pain of that separation was almost more pain than he could take. He loved Erik so much. Watching him leave, letting him go was the hardest thing Charles had ever had to do.  
He couldn’t feel his legs. He couldn’t feel his legs. Erik would have stayed, if he had said that. But then it wouldn’t have been fair. Erik would have stayed, for the feeling of guilt only. Not for Charles. Never for Charles.

Charles started his school; Erik started his brotherhood. Charles lived his life, in the chair, with the knowledge that he let the love of his life go. No matter how much it hurt, he could never come to regret that.

Years later, he watched two boys, two opposites, fire and ice, dance around each other. He saw his and Erik’s history being repeated, and wondered how long exactly it took people to evolve.


End file.
